Things End, They Always Do
by wild-sunshine
Summary: Pavel had thought Hikaru was going to be different. Slash, Pavel/Hikaru and stuff, oneshot, reflective.


Quite AU, my loves, given different shift rotations and stuff? Standalone, oneshot, reflective?

Usual warnings apply… all that stuff. And if you've got the time, I'd love for you to review! I love knowing what you guys thought.

Enjoy!

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And so this is how it ends.

There's really nothing else that can be done. That might be the worst part of all this – the fact that it had happened before Pavel had even realized it, over without asking his consent, or even his attention.

Pavel stares at the star-filled viewscreen before him, remembers telling Hikaru how he spends the eventless moments trying to remember his dreams. He told Hikaru a lot of things – things that were at once impersonal and private, while still maintaining a higher sense of emotional detachment than did Hikaru. Hikaru seemed eager to introduce all his downfalls and emotional catches in one massive sweep – he told Pavel he's never had a boyfriend or even girlfriend before, told Pavel how he lost his mother during his teenage years and now tears up at sad movies, told Pavel he's had sex once and then looked worried at Pavel's opinion of this. Pavel never divulged anything overly personal, told him nothing that was a secret, and in doing so, felt like he was avoiding the plunge Hikaru had taken, choosing instead to wade in shallow waters. He said he was a virgin, but this was something he was rather proud of, having declined several distasteful offers in the past. He said he'd given up on his original career path, starchart mapping, and chosen navigation because he could skip a year and excel, that they were similar enough to appease him, different enough to sink lingering doubts into his mind. He said he'd had two previous boyfriends, something that was a well-known fact. And after the conversation, Pavel had felt like he was cheating Hikaru by backing off admitting any emotional involvement, while simultaneously happy with himself for keeping up this extra shield. Pavel has always been able to walk away unscathed; being hurt by someone he loves is a terrifying prospect.

It's unfair to say that he ever loved Hikaru, because that was only in his mind. Pavel loved all the potential they had. He'd loved the idea of being Hikaru's first commitment, being too good-looking for him and yet there all the same, watching his fencing matches, promising never to leave him alone because suffering through another loss would be heartbreaking.

They'd spent four evenings together, and Pavel had been looking forward to falling in love with Hikaru.

Their evenings were never notable – Pavel would embellish when he told his friends, leaving out the fact that he'd only seen the bedroom of Hikaru's suite, pretending that they spent their time having fascinating conversations, not simply exploring each other's bodies in near-silence.

And yet, these were the moments that introduced Pavel to the idea of chemistry. The way something in him sparked and lit up when he was near Hikaru had been foreign to him; what he keeps reminding himself is that these moments are self-contained. Nothing that happened before or after them can alter anything. If he limits his range of focus, each of these exhilarating feelings is pure and absolute, and it is with total absolution that he can look at them and say _I loved this. _

On their fourth night, each night spaced a perfect week apart, Pavel spends the early hours of the morning shivering next to Hikaru, a sleeping giant beside him, and pretends to be woken when Hikaru's arm slides around him after daybreak, pretends like he'd slept at all. He captures the warmth of that morning in his mind and bottles it up, safe and untouchable, like every other moment, something that has become an instinct he never examined. While his thoughts raced ahead to years of loving Hikaru, his mind, the part with his common sense and intelligence, was steeling him piece by piece for a sudden and abrupt ending.

The ending came, but it was silent and passive. There were no arguments, confrontations, refusals. There was simply a lack of words. Pavel's PADD, the only way Hikaru has ever contacted him, stays dark for a week. Then two. For the first week, Pavel is relentless in his disappointment; during the second week, something started to shift, to slip, and he realized that Hikaru only ever saw him at night, and that the commitment he anticipated was not coming.

On a starship of a thousand people, with schedules that are perfect opposites, it's quite possible that he can avoid seeing Hikaru forever. Hikaru does seem determined; the ship's network shows who is online, and Hikaru logs on every day, but never once sends anything to Pavel.

Pavel doesn't see him. He has only one picture, tucked away in his PADD, a screenshot from one of the video chats they only ever had four times, during Hikaru's five-month away mission. Pavel lingers over the folder, but doesn't ever open it. He knows he'll never delete it.

He'd had high hopes for Hikaru. Pavel had thought Hikaru was different, that his blushing shyness was an indicator of his genuine intentions, that this would be _it. _Even as he hoped, something in him had been protecting him anyways, had sealed off some emotions and stayed his tongue on the subject of anything personal, gone so far as to have someone waiting in the wings, somehow perfectly timed with all this, ready to be better. During that second week of silence, Pavel's daydreams had consisted of that engineer with the dark blue eyes, professing love to him, while Hikaru overheard and suffered heartbreak. Four weeks of silence later, Hikaru had faded from the daydream.

They never had anything. Pavel still refers to Hikaru as a "sort of boyfriend," even though this is a stretch of the truth; he feels that his imagination's fantasies of commitment have earned him this distinction. They never had anything, and yet, it still felt like something ended, when Hikaru stopped talking to him.

Pavel wanted this to be the love of his life, but instead, this is just the story of the man who simply wasn't.

It just isn't the story he thought it was. As Hikaru's smile blurs in his memory, Pavel starts to wonder if perhaps the story of him and the blue-eyed engineer is the story he's been waiting for.

"I've always thought you were really good-looking," Aaron says, something shy and hopeful in his smile, dark blue eyes bright, "so maybe, after I get back from the planetside seminar… you'll call me?"

Pavel's wary of disappointment now, but he still says _yes, _because maybe this is it. Things always end, but they refuse to go without leaving another beginning in their wake.

And so this is how it ends, with Aaron's smile and the world's offering of another story, saying _try again, this story, this may be the one that ends differently. _

_This may be the one that doesn't end_.

Pavel's reasoning tells him that things end, they always, always do, invariably, but there is one story that does not.

This may be that one beautiful story.

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End file.
